Fit For A Monarch
Well it's official - I'm am utterly hooked on Kat Von D makeup. It's now pretty much all I wear. Her formulations are absolutely outstanding and her colours, for the most part, are beautiful. Admittedly, it's not the best brand to buy blind, as I've been having to do since it's only sold in Sephora, but other than the concealer, everything I have bought I have used constantly.
The Butterly Effect
After a bit of a false start with this Monarch eyeshadow palette (don't ask - all I will say is beware of buying KVD on eBay), I finally secured this beauty.
The Monarch palette features hues inspired by the Monarch butterfly and mostly I wanted it for the orange shade at the end, as I have been hunting for a nice bright orange for the longest time and never found one that was quite right. Well, this one is. The rest of palette is fairly neutral but a bit deeper, richer and warmer.
The pigmentations are not wishy-washy but strong and full with brilliant coverage. Eyeshadows can be a challenge to blend when, like me, you have to use a primer such as Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer, but with a little extra work you can get a smooth, even application.
I tried her tutorial below but I had to do a slightly paired back version as these looks tend to work best on youthful eyes rather than older eyes with lines, so whilst I couldn't get as dramatic a look as Kat does here, I got a nice compromise which suits my age a bit better.
The only shade I wasn't really impressed with was the gold hue, entitled Disintegration. I could not, no matter what I did, get the depth of gold she achieves in this tutorial. That's the only shade I would probably swap out for another brand if I were to try this full look again, as it's the gold sweep that really stops this look from being too heavy.
I have been hearing rumours that she is to launch her line in the UK, but since the brand is actually owned by Sephora I can't see how that could happen, unless they open a Sephora store, which would no doubt end up in London anyway. But I live in hope that one day I can walk into Boots and buy KVD makeup.
